The Francis Plummer (1930-2019) Collection

Francis Plummer was born in London in 1930, He studied art and design at the Woolwich Polytechnic School before formal training at the Royal Academy Schools from 1949-54 where he achieved a RA Diploma and was awarded the coveted Leverhulme scholarship for £100. Whilst there, Francis’s work was championed by Sir Stanley Spencer and the art critic Sir Herbert Read, close contemporaries at the Royal Academy Schools included Alan Reynolds and together with two other students they formed ‘The Shoreham Group’.

Francis’ professional career had several strands with freelance work as a medical, anatomical and technical illustrator - initially at Guy’s Hospital. Advertising work including commissions for the National Trust, he also taught art to various groups and painted portraits by commission. His own chosen painting career ran parallel to his commercial work and he gradually built a reputation through exhibitions at leading venues including Leighton House Galleries, London Royal Academy Diploma Galleries, Colchester’s Minories and the London Leicester Galleries. In 1975 a one man show of his landscape and figure paintings entitled To be Born Again was moved from a gallery in Middlesbrough Art Gallery to the Alwin Gallery in Mayfair.  A forward to this breakthrough exhibition reads:

After many years of recluse-like intense creative activity, Francis Plummer is now anxious too emerge and thus promote the interest of a fair body of work, confident of his paintings having some degree of maturity and depth’

Francis arrived at a decision early in his career to focus his personal work on the ancient technique of egg tempera, becoming one of only a handful of artists to carry the tradition. All his egg tempera paintings were painted on a gesso ground and all were created from a palette of just five pigments - Titanium white, yellow ochre, light red, Windsor blue and raw umber, these tones mixed with a little water, acetic acid and egg yokes to create the range of colours we see in the present works, a 1958 Pathe film titled ‘An Artist in Eggs’ can be viewed on YouTube, the short features Francis Plummer demonstrating his craft in a studio hung with pictures from this collection. from 1975 onwards he also painted in acrylic, and also represented in the present collection are various works on paper - particularly landscapes, of the type which were commissioned for National Trust calendars and publications during the 1970s.
Francis’ principle focus was on the depiction of the human form, in a style which is informed by Classical tradition and which references William Blake but which is wholly his own, he wrote: ‘The Greeks, Michaelangelo and Rodin have not exhausted the possibilities in the nude as such by any means’

The present collection comprises works from the artist’s estate spanning his career, the majority of the works have not been exhibited in decades. This collection represents a rare exciting opportunity at auction to present a catalogue of truly original works by an important modern British artist.